This surprised even the game’s lead designer, who actually did not previously believe that he had made a game that could be beaten entirely without violence. Fallout 4 relies heavily on violence both as a mechanic and a storytelling element.

Mechanically, violence is the most interesting, complicated, and well-developed part of the game, and almost all skills and items improve your character’s ability to kill. From a storytelling point of view, the story relies on violence to enforce the themes of post-apocalyptic social collapse, desperation, and self-interest. The story, about the disappearance of the main character’s son, assumes that the character will kill to get the son back. As a result, many characters in the game must be killed for the story to advance. So how did Hinckley do it?

Turns out, while certain characters must die, the game system makes it possible to manipulatively cause their deaths, without directly killing them. Hinckley used a whole range of strategies to keep killing off his character’s record, making the story about a squeamish master manipulator rather than a post-apocalyptic fighter. This brings up one of the most fascinating differences between written fiction and video games.

The Unique Storytelling of Video Games

In written fiction, the reader experiences only the plot created by the author. In video games, players can experience both the intended narrative, controlled by the game designers, and unintended experiences, controlled by the player. Video game players also exercise creativity, using the game as a tool to create their own new art. How you personally “break” a video game is a good indication of how much your creative mind is suited for making games of your own. In this lesson, students will consider how to break video games in ways that create new experiences. But first, let’s look at the elements of the videogame experience.

Video Game Appreciation 101

Video games have three elements:

Aesthetics: the computer generated graphics, art and music

Narrative: the scripted story elements of the game

Ludology: the mechanics and options available to the player

Aesthetics and narrative are entirely controlled by the design team, but ludology is not. Designers cannot predict all player actions, only some.

Being Unpredictable

Video game designers tend to envision specific audiences. RPGs like Fallout are sold to an audience of 17-35 year olds that has, statistically, roughly equal numbers of men and women, and that shows a preference for less complicated, high-reward gameplay. RPG players are most motivated by quick candy-like rewards, also known in brain science as Incremental Goal Progress. That little rush when you loot an enemy for a reward is the core of the RPG. When designing the game, therefore, designers try to encourage players to experience the plot by putting more rewards on the plot-heavy paths. For example, in Fallout 4, the designers encourage the player to kill enemies by making killing the easiest way to gain wealth and experience points. The designers can therefore assume most players will be violent, making it easier to cluster the best art and story along the violent path that they know players will take. Hinckley’s experience was so different because he was not playing like a typical RPG player.

Let’s look at some other examples. Racing games all assume that their players want to win, every time. This means they often do not test what happens if players go completely offroad or backwards. By exploring offroad, players not only create their own experiences, but also tend to find a ton of unplanned glitches. Minecraft is designed as a cooperative crafting game; the designer did not predict people would build into the game an elaborate shooter. Most first-person shooters can be turned into ridiculous physics puzzles, as long as the player isn’t interested in a fair and balanced shoot-out.

In the games you play, think about what the designers think you will do. Is it possible to do something different? Can you create an entirely new game by breaking an existing one?

Media

Some media may contain mature content. Discretion is advised when viewing with students.

Lesson Plan

Lesson Objective: Students will experiment with finding alternate experiences in the ludology of their favorite video games. Students will also identify ways in which other forms of art can be interacted with in order to disrupt consumer-defined experiences. Students will also learn to identify the audience of various video games and how that audience affects elements in the game.

Lee is a fulltime education writer who is partially to blame for some of the harder textbook exams in social studies and English. He has worked on projects in collaboration with Shmoop, A Pass Education, McGraw-Hill, Follett, and Pearson. The Government of Canada once paid him an unconscionable amount of scholarship money to be a huge history nerd for several years of grad school. These days, Lee lives in the frozen wastes of central Ottawa. His spends his spare time with his loved ones: his wife, the many world leaders of Civilization V, and Commander Shepard.

About Us

NuSkool is an entertainment learning platform that finds teachable moments in popular culture. We help our audience find the hidden lessons in all aspects of entertainment. Kids think school is boring and isn’t relevant to their lives, we tend to agree. Our job is to show the world that learning isn’t confined to a textbook and occurs both inside and outside the classroom. It’s real life learning.

NuSkool produces articles, standards aligned lesson plans, quizzes and other types of assessments. Our work began as student engagement specialists, and as experts in both entertainment and education with a special interest in student-centered learning, contextual learning, culturally responsive pedagogy, games based learning and 21st century skills.